Late night alpaca encounter

On the theme of animal adventures - the adventure continues...

Last night after some late night grocery shopping I got home close to 10pm. The outdoor light was on, but no one was home. I walked up the stairs with chicken bones for our new house dog 'Sexy' who barks at her own shadow. She is proving to be a good guard dog, but truthfully it is tiring to listen to her bark all night/morning/afternoon long.

Sexy got her bones and she was happy, I was happy. It doesn't take much to make her wag her tail and slow but surely I may be becoming a dog person. After I left Sexy to eat, I gathered my bags to make my way to my apartment door. To my surprise there was a mean looking alpaca in the front lawn starring at me. This is Martizas' alpaca who last year spit in my face. I remembered this incident and scared myself silly. How on earth was I going to get past this alpaca and come out alive? I called Martiza. She was going to send reinforcements, but I talked her out of it. I said I would wait until the alpaca sat down and was in resting position and then I would make a run for it. I waited for what seemed like the longest 15 minutes of my life. The alpaca sat. I dashed by him. And made it safely to my apartment.

This morning was the funniest site to see our little dog Sexy (the size of a cat) start barking at the alpaca thinking that she was going to defend our house. The alpaca just starred at Sexy, much like he did last night to me. I am wondering if our house is going to turn into a zoo at some point. If it is, we are well on our way.

Animal Talk

As if my mouse problems weren't enough animal time, I went to an animal charla "talk" yesterday to support our women and monitor our health project.

Yesterday I escaped from my office routine to visit one of our health talks with Tula and our guest Vet Vanessa. The topic this week is caring for animals - everyone has them - and how to keep them healthy while also keeping our house environment safe and healthy. The focus was sanitation and cleanliness. Things I am sure our women know, but a little reminder never hurt. The women in the village bank La Perlita were listening very intently. I learned some new fun facts too:

• Guinea pigs can't eat cilantro - it has poisonous substances that can harm them
  
• Guinea pigs drink water, just like humans (None of our women give their guinea pigs water for fear that they will get bronchitis)
• Pigs shouldn't graze on grass; Increases the possibility of them getting sick.
• You can check a pig's tongue to see if it is sick with "cistecercosis"
• If your pig's hair is "on end" or standing up that is a sign the poor guy has intestinal parasites.

The Rodents vs. Humans

I thought my rodent worries were over last week. I was mistaken.

One night last week as Hugo and I were getting ready for bed when we looked up, and to our surprise, saw a little mouse sitting on the wooden beam that holds up our tile roof right above our bed. The little guy took one look at us and escape through the crack in the roof. I didn't sleep that night and Hugo covered the holes the next day. I was just thankful it wasn't the famous monkey mouse (a mouse with the face of a monkey - some mutant thing!) that I had heard so much about.

Two days later as we were eating dinner we heard a scratch on our door. Who? What? Hugo went to open the door and a little mouse runs in our apartment. Hugo grabbed a piece of wood and I grabbed the broom. We chased that mouse around our apartment for more than an hour. Our moment of glory came when the mouse went into our stove and we turned the stove on and waited strategically for his escape and our kill.

We put rodent poison throughout the apartment and haven't heard a noise ...until...last night.

It sounded like the mice were having a party on the roof above our bedroom. I awoke at 2am thinking, they came back for revenge for their poor family member that we killed last week. The little footsteps kept scurring to the same place. Hugo said they were building a nest. Great! Just what I need, more sleepless nights because our mouse family is expanding. Hugo's job this afternoon is to go on the roof and disassemble the nest. Also, a cat is coming home with us today and will be my new best friend.

If you have any rodent advice, please feel free to share as this is new territory for me.

Chucaque

I am finding my way to the computer again after a number of days away. It has been a wonderful, crazy, busy week.

I went out with Desy on Tuesday to visit some loan recipients and help her conduct some of her last interviews. We hiked way up high, to one of the higher points I have been to outside of Cajamarca. Lucia showed us her adobe house with a spectacular view. While I was complaining about the hike, Lucia was laughing as she carried her 2 month old baby and Desy was keeping up right along with her.

On Wednesday I went out to monitor our Health/Stove project with GyC. We went out with one of the stove technicians to make sure the stove were working properly and also that the women knew how to use the stoves and maintain their stoves - to ensure a long lasting stove life. Many of the women have never cooked with this type of mud/cement stove before so there were many tips and recommendations given through out the morning. Some women started their stove fires with leaves - a definite NO (as this can actually harm the stove by making the smoke accumulate and return out of the entrance) . Other women were covering their stovetops with large metal tops that heat up the stovetops and actually degrade the stove opening. I was impressed, as always, as GyC staff kindly and assertively gave usage recommendations and assisted each family with their stove.

When I returned from our stove monitoring tour I was beat, tired and hurting. I was planning on returning to the office that afternoon to help Brad with his second business workshop, but I was no help to him. In fact, when I arrived at the office with a throbbing headache the DHF women came to my rescue. They said, "You have Chucaque." Chucaque is caused by the 1.air in the countryside, 2.the sun and 3.being embarrassed. I think I only had the 2nd (plus a little stress and worry from the rodent problem I am having at home), but whatever. The cure for Chucaque is plunking hair from your head to relive the tension that had accumulated in my head. Both Jesus and Rosa massaged my head and eventually "plucked" my hair. They relived some of the tension, but I had to head home to get the full relief. As I was leaving the office I could hear our office dog 'Sexy' barking when all the women clapped as Brad finished his workshop, so I knew it was a success.

After resting and recovering from my Chucaque I prepared Desy and Brad for a long Buy Day yesterday. We were in the office until 8:30pm last night eliminating, choosing, organizing and labeling the women's products that will soon find their way to Austin, TX. Desy took the night bus last night and Brad only has a couple of days left. It has been so wonderful having them here and I truely wish their stay was a little longer.

Monday Internet Access

I know, I know...I wrote in my last blog entry that I would write at the end of the week - but there was no internet access - so early Monday morning blog will have to replace end of last week blog.

We had a great week last week and DHF was crazy with classes late into Friday afternoon. Thursday and Friday we held two very popular classes: scarves and artisan bags. Pictured here you can see the proud faces of some of our women that finished their bags on Friday.

I was also hoping to post some pictures of Brad and Desiree today, but realized I have no pictures of our awesome Fellows students. That is my job this week. Desiree will continue interviewing our loan recipients this week while Brad has been busy preparing for two business workshops. Then the three of us will be consumed by Buy Day on Thursday and Friday; working to bring to Austin the best of the best products made by the women we support! With Brad and Desiree we had a full eating weekend. Saturday was guinea pig lunch and Sunday was grilled meat complete with potato salad. It felt like summer for a second with all the salads and grill going.

Business Problems

So I have water and the week has gotten better, just as I had expected.

Desiree and Brad, the 2 Business Fellows from Texas, are in full action here. Desiree has been going out with Tula, our health nurse/facilitator, to visit our families in the countryside and do in-house interviews. Brad is hanging out with me and we have been visiting women's businesses and doing informal interviews to get an idea of their business problems and struggles to help us form our business workshops for next week.

I have been surprised to learn about the struggles of some of our women. Charo, who operates a small sewing business out of her living room, has recently decided to stop her sewing business and buy clothes from the Coast and sell them here in Cajamarca. She can make more profit actually buying the clothes already made than is she buys material here (more exensive in Cajamarca) and makes the clothes herself. She loves sewing and I was shocked to learn this and a little sad for her. However, she doesn't have enough capital to buy the amount of clothes she needs/wants to start her business. So she makes jewelry with her daughters in the meantime to have some income.

Then we visited Lizeth while there was a jewelry class going on in her patio. Lizeth has a small little tienda with limited things. Her problem is that she doesn't always have cash on hand to buy merchandise and buys a lot of things on credit. Her customers will come looking for something in her store and she doesn't have it. So they go elsewhere. She loses businesses. Plus, she has a little two year old that takes crackers and lolipops from her store and eats away all her earned income.

Finally, we visited Nancy. She makes fried chicken in the afternoon. She wants to buy a big stove to be able to produce more chicken and she has been saving for it. However, an emergency comes up and all her business savings for the stove go into emergency hospital bills, house repairs, etc.... Her house last year was destroyed and currently Nancy lives above her fried chicken business in a little room made out of scrap pieces of metal and plastic. It would break your heart to see it.

On top of all these problems there are other reoccuring themes: my husband lost his job, never ending debt, school costs and household costs always exceed income...the list goes on.

So that is the mid-weekly update. Come back and visit at the end of the week!

Waterless

Monday morning. It is going to be a good week, I just know it - but I am having a rough start. This weekend we didn't have water in our house. I was hoping to wake to the sound of dripping water in the downstairs faucet, but nothing. Not having an element so essential - water - is a really difficult thing. No dish washing, hand washing, toilet flushing, plant watering, brushing teeth or even cleaning the tabletops. I know many of the families with work with struggle with lacking essential elements in their daily life. I should feel fortunate that I only complain about a weekend without water.

This morning all the kiddos that have been on vacation for almost a month (Independence Day celebrations + swine flu scare) went back to classes. That meant that I was waiting for a 1/2 hour on the street for a bus,mototaxi, taxi...hey I would have ridden a donkey to work even. Full cars everywhere. I eventually got my transportation worked out to come to the office, and thankful it wasn't a donkey, and now I am prepping for a busy week. In these next two weeks DiscoverHope Fund is fortunate to have 2 Business Meadows Fellows from the University of Austin, TX joining the team (the one woman team in Cajamarca!) They just landed in Cajamarca this morning and once they get adjusted we will be pretty busy this week. They are going to help out with some evaluation, business assistance to our women and another Buy Day that is programmed for next week.

Stay tuned!

P.S. Just one last stamp

I was so happy to pick up my birth certificate with it´s legalized stamp from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and then take it to my official translator! It was like a sigh of relief, no more central Lima!....until....my translator highly suggested I return to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to get her signature legalized with another stamp. The place I just came from? Yep. There are lots of falsified documents in Peru and you wouldn´t want to make another trip to Lima just to get another stamp. No.

When all is said and done my birth certificate is going to be worth more than $150, including all the taxi fees, stamp fees, speedy postage fees, not counting my travel expenses to-from Lima. I have never owned a piece of paper that was worth so much.

I really, really do love Hugo. If I didn´t love him, I would have stopped my voyage at the 3rd stamp.

Certified Stamps

I am not in Cajabamba anymore, or Kansas for that matter.

Lima. Capital City. The one and only mega traffic, pollution, noise, oceanfront cement meca in Peru. I was not looking forward to my trip to come to Lima to get some wedding paperwork all straighten out, but I have to tell you I had a fabulous day.

The morning started with a trip to the U.S. embassy. They sent me to the office of an official translator who couldn´t help me, but who sent me to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the central part of Lima, where they could help me. Not only did I spend more than $70 on my official birth certificate with a special letter from the Secretary of State in MN that took a roundtrip to Chicago and back to visit the Peruvian Consulate to get a special stamp - but I had to go to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Lima to get my birth certificate and consulate stamp legalized? Seriously. Does the U.S. make you go to 5 different offices to get your paperwork done before you get married? It doesn´t end there, because I also have to go to a different special translator office tomorrow to get the whole shabag translated into spanish.

Along the way I made friends with many taxi drivers, but never letting my guard down.

Then in the afternoon I took a walking tour of possible hotel options for the big January Lima visit with the family. I was pleasantly surprised at the beautiful, unique and group discount options that I found. So if any of you are looking for Lima accomodations I now feel like an expert. Ask me.

Art in the Open Air

Lately there is art everywhere - and this past weekend art was in the open air. It was fabulous. I traveled with Hugo and his artists friends to Cajabamba, the birthtown of the famous Peruvian artist Jose Sabogal. We stayed in an awful hotel (selection for hotels is slim in Cajabamba), but had a wonderful time.

Cajabamba organized a full day of open air painting competition, where artists from all over the country invaded the small town to turn Cajabamba into an art haven. The artists had 8 hours to create a painting of a little piece of Cajabamba. After Hugo finished his painting early in the morning we ventured out to visit the other artists´ work. It was amazing that at the end of a dirt road, the top of a curvy path, alongside adobe houses...there was an artist. They were everywhere. And they weren´t alone - children, adults, animals gathered round to witness art coming alive. Can you imagine 300 artists transforming a town of less than 5,000 people into artist´s headquarters?

We observed the paintings the next day as they were all placed in an elementary school for preparation for the exposition. I was blown away at the talent and diversity in combining colors and artistic elements. In the end neither Hugo nor his friends took first or second or even third place. But we came back to Cajamarca on a broken bus (literally it broke down in the middle of the road) with the unique experience of sharing art with the small town of Cajabamba.